


an apple tree, (possibly) cursed and running from the law

by rhyol1te



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: 2020 Same-Prompt Fic Challenge (Les Misérables), Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Don't copy to another site, M/M, Slice of Life, can you tell that the author was hungry while drafting parts of this?, descriptions of cooking, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:21:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23896720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhyol1te/pseuds/rhyol1te
Summary: Enjolras and Grantaire move in together, along with the apple tree that Jehan has... obtained.For the Same-Prompt Fic Challenge 2020.
Relationships: Enjolras/Grantaire (Les Misérables)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 39
Collections: 2020 Same-Prompt Fic Challenge





	an apple tree, (possibly) cursed and running from the law

**Author's Note:**

> The prompt: _"I didn't know you could do that."_

Grantaire and Enjolras plant the apple tree in the spring. Or rather, they put it in a new pot, because it’s one of those miniature ones, and they don’t really have anywhere besides a pot to put it. 

The tree is a gift from Jehan, to celebrate their moving in together (or intent to, anyway; Grantaire won't move in until the end of the month when his lease expires).

The fact that it's from Jehan takes a moment to sink in, because when Enjolras opens the door they aren't there - only the apple tree is.

"R!" Enjolras calls, holding the door open to stare at the honest-to-goodness tree in the hallway outside of the apartment. "Did you order an apple tree? Can you even order apple trees online?"

"What?" Grantaire says, and walks over to the door, holding two mugs of coffee. "Here, want some coffee? Or rather, milk with some coffee for flavor, you heathen."

"Thanks," Enjolras says, kindly not mentioning the fact that Grantaire’s coffee may not have milk but does have a truly startling amount of sugar, and then points to the tree. "There's a tree."

Grantaire blinks. "So there is."

"And you didn't order a tree? I mean, assuming apple trees can be ordered online."

"Nope. Did you?" Grantaire asks, walking around the tree to look at it from each angle.

"Nope," Enjolras says, taking a sip of his milk with coffee. "I wonder who brought it."

A minute passes.

"Well," Enjolras says, and then doesn't say anything else, because there's a tree, and neither of them know why there's a tree.

"It would be dramatically appropriate," Grantaire muses, "for whoever left this here to pop out of nowhere and explain. Right about...now."

The dramatically appropriate doesn't happen: they wait for another minute.

Then, when Enjolras has started looking longingly over his shoulder at their kitchen, and when Grantaire has just started to consider teasing his boyfriend (again) about not being able to cook anything beyond pasta and one kind of sauce (look, he’s trying to learn); then, when they're both thinking about things that are not the apple tree and the apple tree has started to recede into normalcy, then Jehan shows up, clutching a large plastic bag full of... dirt?

"Yep! Dirt,” Jehan says, and then points at the tree. “You'll need to put it in a different one. That one's too small."

"What?" Enjolras looks confused.

Jehan moves the grocery bag full of dirt to their other hand. Some of it falls onto the carpet. "I'll clean that up," they say. "But the tree. You'll need to put it in a different pot. That one's too small."

"Ah," Grantaire says. "So the tree's for us, then?"

Jehan blinks. "Why else would I leave it in your doorway?"

"Perhaps it's a fugitive," Grantaire says. "Running from the law. Like Enjolras at the last protest. From the apple-law. Or Javert. Maybe there's a law that apple trees have to be tall tree-sized, and this one broke that law - I mean, look at it, it’s _tiny_ \- and now it needs to hide out in our apartment. Or at Marius's apartment, like Enjolras did."

"Look," Enjolras says, "Marius's apartment was closer than your old one."

"By one floor," Grantaire says. "But that's alright, I forgive you. It's been a month, after all. We were going to make breakfast, Jehan - do you want some?"

Jehan stands on their tiptoes to look over Grantaire's shoulder at the (empty) kitchen. Evidently not seeing anything, they decide to ask, "What is it?"

"Oh, so there's an interview process? French toast. I'm going to teach Enjolras how to make it."

"Oh no," Enjolras says, eyes wide. "R, I set the kitchen on fire last time I tried to make toast."

"It was only a curtain," Grantaire says. "And I'll get out a bucket of water to throw at you if you set anything on fire, if that'll make you feel better."

"Shouldn't the water be on the thing that's burning?" Jehan asks.

"Nope," Grantaire says. "It'll be like cat training. You set something on fire, you get sprayed with water."

"I'm not sure that we were training the same kind of animal," Jehan says, "when you helped me train Joly's cats. But yeah, sure, I'll stay for breakfast."

"Yes, please," Enjolras says, and moves from the doorway so that Jehan can go inside. "Here, R and I'll move the the tree -"

"Be careful," Jehan says. "It’s delicate."

“It’s a _tree._ ”

Jehan gives Enjolras a look.

“Fine, I’ll be careful.”

They move the tree inside, and then out to the balcony, which Jehan inspects and pronounces suitable.

"Why did you bring us a tree?" Enjolras says, cracking an egg into a bowl, and then fishing out the pieces of shell that followed the egg out of the bowl with a fork.

"Well," Jehan says, and takes a sip of their coffee, which is only coffee, and doesn’t have any sugar or milk, because Jehan is occasionally crazy. "It was just sitting there, on the side of the road -"

"You stole the tree." Grantaire shuts the fridge, and puts the milk on the counter. "It's really running from the law, then?"

"No!" Jehan says. "There was a sign on it."

"Did it say 'I need a getaway driver?'" Grantaire says to Jehan, and then says, "No, three eggs are plenty, now you're just going to stir in some milk," to Enjolras.

"It said 'free, please take,'" Jehan says. "I don't know, maybe it's cursed."

"Hmm," Enjolras says. "Maybe. How much milk should I put in the eggs?"

"I don't know," Grantaire says, and shrugs. "Enough."

"That's not very helpful."

"I normally do it without a recipe."

Enjolras looks at the tree. "Maybe it's cursed Grantaire right now, so that he can't remember how much milk goes in French toast. I'm just going to put in a splash, hopefully that's enough."

"Should be," Grantaire says, and starts setting the table with plates and glasses and silverware.

"Is there anything I should do?" Jehan says, moving from one of their kitchen stools to the other, and sitting cross-legged on it.

"I don't think so," Grantaire says, and then turns to Enjolras. "Now all you have to do is dunk the bread in the egg, and then you fry it."

"Can you do one so that I know what it's supposed to look like?"

"Sure," Grantaire says, and dunks the bread in the egg and fries it. Enjolras attempts to do the same, and, to his credit, the first few he makes are edible. Then he gets distracted, doesn’t cook one for long enough, and gets raw egg on all the finished pieces of toast.

"See?" Enjolras says, sitting down next to Jehan. "I told you that I can't cook. Maybe I'm cursed, like the tree."

"Maybe," Jehan says.

. . .

Grantaire paints the tree's new pot with sunflowers, lying on his stomach on the balcony with the it in front of him. The apple tree is banished to the kitchen, so that there's room for him to lay in the sun.

"Wouldn't it be easier if you painted it, say, on the table?" Enjolras asks, watching a droplet of yellow paint fall from the edge of a petal, slide down the side of the pot, and then land on the towels Grantaire's put down.

"Nah," Grantaire says, and shifts so that he can look up at Enjolras. "I mean, probably, but then there wouldn't be drips."

"You want the drips?"

"Don't sound so doubtful," Grantaire says, grinning. "It'll look as if the flowers are melting."

"Huh," Enjolras says, and sits on the other side of the tiny balcony, squishing his legs to his chest so that both of them fit. "Cool."

"Here," Grantaire says, holding out the paintbrush. "You want to do half?"

"Sure," Enjolras says, climbing over Grantaire's out-flung legs so that he can actually sit next to the flowerpot, and grabbing the paintbrush. "They're going to be lumpy," he warns Grantaire.

"Alright with me," Grantaire says, and rolls over so that he's laying on his back. He closes his eyes.

"You're like a cat," Enjolras says, starting on a flower. "Or a lizard."

"Mmm?"

"Basking like that," Enjolras says. "You're like a cat."

"Mmmm."

Enjolras laughs, and paints a few more flowers on the pot. They're lumpy, but, he decides, squinting so that they blur in his vision, it looks nice. Sloppy, but nice.

. . .

They get dirt all over themselves and each other, trying to transplant the tree, and Jehan ends up having to come help them.

Once they're done, Grantaire turns the pot so that the flowers that Enjolras painted can be seen from their kitchen.

Enjolras rolls his eyes. "Well, at least all the neighbors will get to see the half you did."

. . .

The house/apartment warming party is Bahorel's idea, and (like many of Bahorel's best ideas) is enthusiastically under planned.

Bahorel texts the groupchat _were showing up at Enjolras and Grantaires Saturday 3ish bring food but dont say anythng to them its a_ _surprse_

_You do realize,_ Enjolras texts back, _that both Grantaire and I are in this group-chat?_

_oh,_ Bahorel responds.

_groupchat = 1 wrd,_ Grantaire sends, using the most vowels in a single text since he argued with Combeferre about writing vowels being unnecessary and bet Bossuet that he could write without them for a month.

Enjolras looks up from his phone, and raises his eyebrows. "I'm right here."

Grantaire, curled up across the couch from him: _knw tht_

Enjolras rolls his eyes and goes back to his essay.

. . .

The others must have created a separate, secret groupchat without them in it, because they all arrive at 2:00 on Saturday.

Food is brought, though, and lots of it. There’s even -

"Is that a _cake_?" Grantaire says. “Why is there an enormous cake?”

“I bet we could eat it all,” Bahorel mutters. Joly gives him a horrified look.

"Gavroche made it," Eponine says, and points at the cake, which sure enough says, in slightly lopsided frosting: _HARPY APARTMENT. FROM GAVROCHE. UR WELCOME_.

"I like harpies," Grantaire says, moving to dip his finger in the frosting at the side of th cake, where it won't mess up the lettering. Eponine swats him.

"Tell him that I'd make one for him, too," Enjolras says, "if I wasn't cursed by the apple tree."

"Oh?" Jehan says. "So it is cursed?"

"You idiots," Eponine says. "Why are you keeping something cursed in your house? Or something that curses you, that is."

"Apple tree?" Bossuet says.

"Jehan gave us an apple tree," Grantaire says, and pulls aside the curtain covering their sliding door. "See?"

"I didn't know you could do that," Marius says, and coos and the tree.

Grantaire blinks. "Do what?"

"Grow trees that small. It's so tiny! We should get one, Cosette!"

Cosette grins. “I wonder if there are lemon trees - we could make lemonade.”

Marius nods, and grins back. “Do they have lemon ones, Jehan?"

"I think so," Jehan says. "But I don't know where you'd get one. I found that one on the side of the road."

"It was running from the law," Grantaire says.

"Wait," Marius says. "Really?"

Jehan nods solemnly. Marius's eyes go wide.

From behind Jehan, Enjolras shakes his head and mouths _it's a joke!_

Marius nods, and mouths _thanks!_ back.

The rest of the apartment-warming party is spent comparing different miniature trees, and cooing over videos of cats, because Joly has the eerie ability to google _anything_ and have cat videos pop up.

. . .

Cosette and Marius’s lemon tree is in bloom when it’s their turn to host the monthly movie night, so Grantaire decides to smell them. Unfortunately, when Grantaire sticks his nose against them he sticks his nose very close to the thorns that also adorn the branches of the tree.

He yelps, and jumps back. "It has thorns!"

“Yeah,” Bossuet says sadly. “I learned that, too.”

Enjolras blinks, and looks away from the intense discussion about what they should watch. "Yes...?"

"I didn't realize it had thorns!"

"Do you want me to get the band-aids?" Joly asks. “I have some in the pocket of my coat, just in case -”

“They’re good band-aids,” Bossuet says.

Musichetta laughs. “You’d certainly know.”

"Nah," Grantaire says, rubbing at his face. "I'm not bleeding, I don't think. Just be careful."

“I will,” Enjolras says, looking like he’s trying not to smile.

. . .

Jehan wanders into their apartment a few months later, when the apple tree is no longer blooming but has tiny green apples on its branches. "Do you have a name for it?"

Grantaire, who was using the living room as a studio in which to practice painting some of the rocks that he'd picked up during his and Enjolras's last walk near the river, dunks his paintbrush into his tea, looks at it and swears. Then he says, "The painting? No. It's just practice, anyway. I don’t even know why we have a bunch of rocks. Maybe I'll call it _A Bunch of Rocks._ Or A _Multitude of Sediment._ Or _Gravel, But Bigger._ Or _-"_

Jehan pulls the curtains open, revealing the tree in question and sending a flood of light onto the rocks. Which is fine; Grantaire was using a lamp to light them, and anyway he's got most of the shadows done already. "No," they say, "Your a tree. Do you have a name for your apple tree?"

"Also no," Grantaire says, and almost takes a sip of his now paint-filled tea.

Jehan sniffs. "Rude. Where's Enjolras? Maybe _he_ has ideas for a name."

"He's at a meeting," Grantaire says. "He'll be back in an hour and a half, if you want to stay."

Jehan shakes their head. "I would, but I have to go help Bahorel move his couch."

"I'll tell him you said hi."

"You should also tell him I said to name the tree," Jehan says, opening the door and walking into the hallway. "Farewell."

"Bye!" Grantaire calls, and actually takes a sip of his paint-y tea. He spits it out on instinct. It splatters over his painting. "Fuck."

The painting is a lost cause, now - all he can hope is that the tea leaves some kind of interesting stain, which they might. Maybe. Hopefully.

When Enjolras gets home, Grantaire kisses him and says, "Jehan says hi, and that we need to name the tree. Did you give them a key?"

"Nope," Enjolras says. "I thought you did; they've come in a few times when I've been home alone."

"Nope," Grantaire says. "And now I think I know what happened to the key that we thought that I lost."

Enjolras nods. "Well, at least it's just Jehan who has it, and not Courfeyrac."

"What's wrong with Courfeyrac?"

"Remember when he decided to glitter bomb our bathroom?"

"Oh, yeah. Right. Definitely better Jehan than Courfeyrac, then."

. . .

They name the tree after a Greek goddess of justice. The justice part is for Enjolras, and the Greek mythology part is for Grantaire.

. . .

When the apples are ripe it's fall, and they make a pie. A tiny pie - there aren’t very many apples, and their first attempt is… interesting - but a pie nonetheless. They eat it on the balcony, and Grantaire resists the temptation to tell the tree about how they’re eating its children.

“It’s good,” Enjolras says through a mouthful of apple.

“What, the fact that I’m not telling the tree about how we’re eating its children?”

Enjolras rolls his eyes. “No, the pie.”

“Oooh, that.” Grantaire grins. “Well, it _is_ our second try.”

“We’re not going to talk about pie number one,” Enjolras says darkly.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments (no matter how short!) and kudos make me super happy! <3


End file.
